Monthly Archives: November 2014

So we’ve reached the second-to-last day of the annual Steam fall sale. It’s not time to panic yet, though. We’re probably going to get an encore sale tomorrow but who knows what Steam might throw at us for Cyber Monday sales. What I can confirm is that every game has the 48-hour countdown on its store page.

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We’ve reached day four of the Steam Exploration Sale. It’s amazing that we’re already almost done the Steam sale but there are a few games for shooter and RPG fans today.

If you’re looking for the likes of Borderlands or COD: Ghosts, you’ve got your shooter needs cover. From the RPG ranks, you can pick from the Fallout franchise, South Park: The Stick of Truth, The Witcher franchise and Dragon Age: Origins. So today is a pretty damn good day to add to your already massive back catalogue.

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It’s day three of the Steam Exploration Sale. With today being Black Friday in the US, it’s not just Steam that are discounting games. Check out /r/GameDeals because they’ll have info on all the various deals scattered around the internet.

If you’re looking for what’s on Steam, some big franchises are on sale with Assassin’s Creed, Batman: Arkham, Left 4 Dead and Grid all available for deep discounts. But I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel as though this sale is missing a little bit of zing without the Flash Sales and Community Picks? Hopefully, that comes back in the Christmas/Holiday sale.

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This week see the return of the eSports weekend calendar from a brief hiatus and it’s a busy weekend on the calendar. That’s because this weekend is DreamHack Winter 2014 in Jönköping, Sweden.

At DreamHack Winter, there are big tournaments for League of Legends, StarCraft II, Hearthstone and CS:GO running under the DreamHack banner. The Asus ROG Dream League is also running an event this weekend in Jönköping at DreamHack too. Basically, if you want live eSports action this weekend, you’re at or streaming DreamHack.

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So we’ve reached the second day of the Steam Exploration Sale and we’ve learned some things about the new Steam sale format. First, there are no Community Picks or Flash Sales. Second, there are two sets of daily deals each day, one running for two days and the other running for just 24 hours. That means that yesterday’s two-day deals are still active today.

While there were a lot of new games in yesterday’s deals, today is a lot of the standard Steam sale fare. You’ve got your BioShocks, Kerbal, Payday, Deus Ex, Max Payne and more. In terms of newer games, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the highest profile new game in today’s offerings but it’s still new so it’s pricey. You should always be sure to keep your budget in mind if you’re buying more expensive games.

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Over the last few years, quarterly financial results time hasn’t been Sony’s friend. The company has been hurting on the income statement and balance sheet thanks to underperformance from their TV and mobile device divisions. However, they have been buoyed by the sales success of the PlayStation 4.

Now, Sony is trying to turn back towards profitability and is putting the PS4 at the forefront of their plan.

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Just when you think that you can count on Steam to do something relatively normal with their sales, they’ve come up with a slightly ridiculous name and a new format for their fall sale. This year’s fall Steam sale is the Steam Exploration Sale. The big change is that the sale doesn’t have Flash Sales or Community Picks but they still have daily deals. It might just be a first day of the sale thing but there are two-day deals and one-day deals. I’d hazard that the two-day deals will roll to below the recommendations bar dividing the one and two-day deals.

A lot of the usual suspects are on sale today like CS:GO, Dead Island, Don’t Starve, and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. However, there are a couple of newer games on sale that you might be interested in. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a game I’ve heard good things about. The Long Dark and The Evil Within are newer and on for good discounts. Conversely, Watch Dogs, Civ: Beyond Earth and Lords of the Fallen are on sale but I’d hazard that they’ll get cheaper if you hold out a bit longer.

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The following post was originally written for The Lowdown and is geared towards a motorsport audience. Most of the analysis is gear toward that audience rather than a tech crowd. Since I think that a major all-electric motorsports championship is kind of a big deal in the tech world and because this was a really good race, I thought we should continue covering Formula E with a look at the second ePrix.

For the second time, the FIA’s new green motorsport took to the streets in an attempt to show that motorsport doesn’t have to be all loud noises and high-octane to be a spectacle.

After a so-so first outing that was only highlighted by a massive accident in the final turn, Formula E returned with a trip to the streets of Putrajaya, Malaysia, that saw battles throughout the field. Well, except at the front where Sam Bird absolutely dominated the day’s running to win his first ePrix.

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Anyone that follows my writing over on etg. sister site The Lowdown Blog knows that I’m a racing fanatic. Two wheels, four wheels, even more wheels (European truck racing is surprisingly awesome), road courses, ovals, dirt, I can settle down and watch anything. So naturally, I had a lot of toy cars growing up and had a lot of toy car races.

This brings me to Toybox Turbos. While many people liken the game to a modernized callback to Codemasters’ Micro Machines, their first iconic racing game, I thought of Toybox Turbos to be just like the toy car races on the floor at home. But does a childhood call back, whether it’s to a video game or little plastic or die-cast cars, make a great game.

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You know, I haven’t been to my local comic book shop in about six weeks, I probably have a rather painful bill waiting for me when I pick up my file this week. I really should set a reminder on my phone to pick up my file every third or fourth week of the month. I know that you probably aren’t too worried about my comic buying habits but every little bit I can help you guys, I will.

Anyway, I have a few interesting selections from this week’s pull list but I’ve kept away from the big two. Let’s start with a couple of very odd takes on franchises. IDW has a mashup of Angry Birds and Transformers that might just be out of Michael Bay’s dreams in Angry Birds Transformers #1. If steampunk and sci-fi are your thing, you’ll probably want to pick up the finale of Dynamite’s miniseries with Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 #4. And for fans of the new Planet of the Apes movies, Boom bridges the two reboot films starting with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes #1.